Saturday, October 5, 2013

Oh that Sinking feeling

Not the tight one day one Idea that was Regrowth, but an old idea from years back that needs to air out.
By the way, yes I did do the dishes before I went to Hawaii, so this is not about me.
Part one.

Rob was a bachelor's bachelor of the worst sort. House keeping escaped him. Tonight he was trying to capture it, by force if necessary. A trip to Hawaii was booked and he was leaving in the morning. Not coming home to a city of slime moulds forced him to tidy the place. He worked over the mental checklist, laundry, travel documents and ticket on the table check. Satisfied with his preparedness he called it a night, cracked open a beer and turn on the TV and forgot about the dishes.

Rob made his flight, he even remembered to rinse out the empty beer bottle from the night before, he was pleased with himself. The dregs of the beer landed in a half filled kitchen sink. Rob drank many a beer in Hawaii and generally got too much sun.

***

Mean while in apartment 308. A series of events played out the lights of which have not been seen in hundreds of millions of years. Somethings was stirring in the kitchen. Perhaps it was a cosmic ray or a solar flare, it almost certainly had something to do with the stale beer. For three days not much happened. Then every thing changed.

Day four of in the sink:

The mould had subsided. Some hardy blooms clung to the edge of the world but the centre was free. A creature smaller than a rice grain and vaguely shrimp shaped circled the edge of mould feeling along the edges for fragments of food, and tasting the water for the tell tail tang of poison spores. An irregular shadow drifted over head. Following a base instinct it swam towards it. The forager could taste the rich calorie dense goodness. The creature reached for the treasure with a three pronged pincer. Tugging, flanges flapping in the water, the creature could not move the morsel it was trapped by surface tension. It did not give up, its struggle sent signal molecules through the soapy world. Deep below, near the cereal spoon left of the beer bottle and under the ravioli can help was summoned.

Help arrived, pulsing backwards on powerful multi-jointed limbs. The chemical markers of the scout lead the heavies to the nugget. Their thick claws bit into the nugget with more power than the scout could imagine, and the massive paddles that were the third legs smoothly dragged the treasure down to the depth of the Ravioli can. A small victory at apartment 308.